Here's the wonderful Studs . I was watching this last night. Studs was asked how he would like to be remembered. It was a poignant moment. As he was answering the BBC interrupted the programme to show Hilary Clinton rush into a car. Not to speak or say anything world shattering. Just to see her ambling away into the distance. That's why they fucking interrupted the programme?!
It's like CNN with its commercial breaks every 45 seconds (because that's the attention span of people now, that's what the advertisers want). Break up consciousness, reduce everything to a soundbyte, a spectacle. That's entertainment folks! Arnie:Barama has skinny legs. Palin, the "hockey mom": he "pals" around with terrorists. I'm not even sure if Obama loves Israel the way I do. Shucks, ain't that cute. The news that doesn't stay news. That's what it's about. Yeah, we have free speech, don't you know. They hate our freedoms, remember!
But when did it begin, this fanatical insistence on the isolated individual, battling against his demons, against authority (the state, society, the Church), untamed nature, against other people too: Catholics, the black man, the jew, witches, commies, the savage Red Man, liberals, gays, terrorists...this neurotic paranoia of everything that is not related to himself ("me, myself and I")? Descartes and radical uncertainty, Calvin, the Puritans? The american woodsman as the future?
All destinies have become entirely personal, not at all communal.
The radical individual-who is hardly an individual at all- separated from culture, moral commitments and obligations, a sense of solidarity that goes beyond self-interests. The "self-made man," since nothing can come before choice.
And it never strikes our friend that he's been sold this image of the self, that it is actually just what is required by liquid modernity and late capitalism. No attachments, no bonds (this reeks of socialism)-
No comments:
Post a Comment